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Saturday, January 26, 2013

The Problem with Our View of Hell

This is an argument used by many non Christians. It is also a very good one. However it is only good because so often our view of Hell is rather flawed. We see Hell as a place of punishment. “If you don’t follow the commandments you’ll go to Hell,” many will say. But let us take a closer look at this and realize why this argument is flawed, yet stops many in their tracks because they themselves have a flawed view of Hell.

People do go to Hell because of their sins. However, there is more to the subject than it seems. God gives us free will. He allows us to love Him if we want or not love Him if we want. He also allows us to choose how we want to spend eternity. We can either spend it with Him or separated from Him. There is no middle ground. When we are in full communion with God we are in Heaven. When we are separated from God we are in Hell. Hell does not necessarily consist of actual fire (we don’t know what it is like) and the actual suffering that comes from Hell is in the fact that we know that forever we are separated from God.

God has given us the choice to be with Him in Heaven for all eternity. All that we must do is show Him that we love Him and therefore our fellow man. We do this by following the commandments that God has given to us. It doesn’t matter if we say that we want to be with God, unless we show with our actions that we want to be with Him.

If someone said that he only ate scrambled eggs, but then ate over easy eggs all the time, you would know that he doesn’t really eat only scrambled eggs. He would have shown by his actions that he was not sincere in what he had said.

So in reality the argument that “if God is loving why does he send people to Hell?” is a useless argument. It has no weight because in reality it is our own choice to go to Hell. We have chosen that we do not wish to be with God. We have told him by our actions that we do not wish to be in full communion with him. God is loving. He will not force himself on anyone who does not want him. So just as he does not force us to worship him (which he could do if he wanted) he will not force us into communion with him. He will always allow us to make choices with our free will, and will not deny us our choice.